Hellenistic Philosophy Introductory
Ethics 195
- They say that only the honourable is good, according to Hecaton
in book three of his On Goods and Chrysippus in his book On the Honour-
able; and this is virtue and that which participates in virtue; this is the
same as [saying] that everything good is honourable and that the good
is equivalent to the honourable-which is equal to it. For "since it is
good, it is honourable; but it is honourable; therefore, it is good." They
think that all goods are equal and that every good is worth choosing in
the highest degree and does not admit of being more or less intense. They
say that of existing things, some are good, some bad, and some neither.
- The virtues-prudence, justice, courage, temperance and the
others-are good; and their opposites-imprudence, injustice and the
others-are bad; neither good nor bad are those things which neither
benefit nor harm, such as life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth,
good reputation, noble birth, and their opposites death, disease, pain,
ugliness, weakness, poverty, bad reputation, low birth and such things,
as Hecaton says in book seven of his On the Goal, and Apollodorus in
his Ethics and Chrysippus. For these things are not good, but things
indifferent in the category of preferred things. 103. For just as heating,
not cooling, is a property of the hot, so benefitting, not harming, is a
property of the good; but wealth and health do not benefit any more
than they harm; therefore, neither wealth nor health is good. Again, they
say that what can be used [both] well and badly is not good; but it is
possible to use wealth and health [both] well and badly; therefore, wealth
and health are not good. Posidonius, however, says that these things too
are in the class of goods. But Hecaton in book nine of On Goods and
Chrysippus in his On Pleasure deny even of pleasure that it is a good;
for there are also shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good. 104.
To benefit is to change or maintain something in accordance with virtue,
while to harm is to change or maintain something in accordance with vice.
Things indifferent are spoken of in two senses; in the simple sense,
those things which do not contribute to happiness or unhappiness [are
indifferent], as is the case with wealth, reputation, health, strength and
similar things. For it is possible to be happy even without these things,
since it is a certain kind of use of them which brings happiness or
unhappiness. But in another sense things indifferent are what do not
stimulate an impulse either towards or away from something, as is the
case with having an odd or even number of hairs on one's head, or with
extending or retracting one's finger; the first sort [ofindifferents] are no
longer called indifferent in this sense; for they do stimulate impulses
towards or away from [themselves]. 105. That is why some of them are
selected are rejected, while those others leave one equally
balanced between choice and avoidance.
